posted Jul 9th, 2024 - All is said and done in Hungary, and NMP PCH HayaBusa won the 16th consecutive CISM World Championship title for Belgium, with probably the team's best performance of the 8-round competition.

InTime's Dirk Venter, who controlled the operation of the judging system live in Hungary and is an experienced competitor and FAI Judge himself, said that HayaBusa's engineering of the last sequence made a significant difference. The Belgian's won the last round by three points over the Golden Knights with a more traditional engineering of Round 8.

The sequence of Round 8 (M-Q-R-14) included Random Formation "R", which cannot be found in the traditional FAI/ISC dive pool. It only occurs at CISM events and is the Caterpillar of Block 15. At least three of the NMP PCH HayaBusa members in Hungary (David Grauwels, Dennis Praet, Jeroen Nollet) are familiar with the peculiar specialty in the CISM dive pool that they have applied regularly in the past.

Neal Willems competed for the first time at a CISM competition, together with the Golden Knights, who have knows the Caterpillar only as the first formation of Block 15 at FAI/ISC/USPA indoor and outdoor competitions. The HayaBusa 3-way are more used to integrate the Caterpillar into ane CISM sequence and found once again a special way in Hungary. The 3-point advantage over the Golden Knights was the biggest win of a single round in this duel for the gold medals.

CISM Military 2024			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Male - Top 4		M,16,E,B		M,D,F,21		M,A,C,22		M,O,19,P		M,H,L,11		M,G,N,1		M,17,K,J		M,Q,R,14		Total	Avg
1	NMP PCH HayaBusa	BE	37	1	36		30		34		30	2	30	1	39		31	2	267	33.4
2	Golden Knights	US	35	2	35		28	2	36		34		30		37		28	1	263	32.9
3	Qatar Tigers	QA	38	1	31	3	25	4	37		31	1	25	3	38	1	29		254	31.8
4	Papea	ES	27	2	33		26		29		32		27	1	30	1	24		228	28.5

---

NMP PCH HayaBusa - Golden Knights - Qatar Tigers at the CISM 2024, video footage courtesy of FAI/InTime

---

The new Golden Knights lineup posted a higher CISM average in Hungary than the highly experienced U.S. Army team of 2007 in India (32.9 - 31.4) to take the 2nd place. NMP PCH HayaBusa needed 33.4 to leave the Golden Knights behind, and they had to overcome the 1-point lead of the Golden Knights after Round 5.

It has not happened very often that NMP PCH HayaBusa had to work so hard for their annual CISM gold medals. There was hardly any serious competition at all for the new Belgian military team at CISM World Championships after they had joined the Belgian military services in 2007.

In fact, the very first trip to the military world championship in 2007 has been and still is the closest call. The NSL News recalled the 2007 event on July 7th when the Golden Knights had a 1-point lead after Round 5.

The uninterrupted Belgian CISM victory series began with the 1-point win over the Golden Knights in 2007, and it is still running after the three consecutive HayaBusa highscores that turned the meet around this week in Hungary. Once again it was a Golden Knights team that threatened the Belgians 17 years later.

FAI Outdoor World Meet 2022			1		2		3		4		5		6		7		8		9		10		Total	Avg
Rank	4-way Open		20,16,B		P,D,21,13		17,K,11		E,A,19,22		2,9,M		C,14,F,12		3,6,18		4,10,1		8,Q,O,H		5,7,J		Total	Avg
1	Arizona Airspeed	US	21	-1	28		27		27		31		23		21		20		32		31		261	26.1
2	NMP-PCH Hayabusa	BE	20	-1	25	-2	21		23		28		20	-2	19		17		29		26		228	22.8
3	Qatar Tigers	QA	19	-2	23	-1	22	-1	21	-1	26		18		17	-1	17		28		28		219	21.9
4	France 4-way Open	FR	19		23	-1	22		23		27		20	-1	18		15	-1	20	-5	27	-1	214	21.4

---

NMP PCH HayaBusa - Qatar Tigers at the FAI Outdoor World Championship 2022

---

The consistency that the Belgian military services had with NMP PCH HayaBusa paid back literally with 16 consecutive sets of gold medals for the state sponsor.between 2007 and 2024. However, Qatar copied the consistency when the Qatar Tigers and other Formation Skydiving competition teams were formed.

The Tigers have owned the 2nd place at the CISM World Championships since 2016 and reduced the distance to NMP PCH HayaBusa year by year, until the recent personnel changes in Belgium and the hiring of Andy Grauwels as the 4-way coach for the Tigers seemed to finally offer the opportunity to turn the CISM silver medals into gold.

Then came the Golden Knights and interfered not only with the plans of the Qatar Tigers, who actually ended up in 3rd place for the first time since 2016. They finished closer to NMP PCH HayaBusa than ever before, with the 13-point difference after all eight rounds. However, the Golden Knights came almost as close to the winner as their 2007 lineup and created an exciting 4-way thriller that David Grauwels survived successfully with his 16th consecutive CISM gold medal. The Qatar Tigers will have their next opportunity to defeat NMP PCH HayaBusa when the Belgians scramble their lineup back to the FAI/ISC roster, with David Grauwels back in his new camera slot, and with new point Ray Lodens. Both teams will meet Arizona Airspeed and the French Aethers in October for the FAI Outdoor World Championships 2024, and one of the four teams will leave North Carolina without a medal.